The present invention relates to an improved device for successfully sealing the inside space of the spinning rotor from the atmosphere in a conventional open-end spinning apparatus.
In an open-end spinning apparatus of a typical form, a bundle of fibers supplied by a feed roller 1 is separated into individual fibers by combing action of a combing roller 2, and such individual fibers are then carried by said combing roller 2 through a fibers delivery aperture 3 to the spinning rotor 4. The individual fibers thus separated and supplied to the rotor 4 are collected in the form of a ring onto the collecting surface 5 of said spinning rotor 4, from which a yarn is formed and then drawn off the rotor 4. In such an arrangement of the open-end spinning apparatus, its spinning rotor 4 has therein outwardly-extending air-discharge apertures 6 formed as shown in FIG. 1 through which a flow of air stream is produced by vacuum created within the rotor 4 under the influence of centrifugal force which is developed by high-speed rotation of rotor 4 and causes the inside air to be flown out by such suctioning vacuum, thereby the individual fibers separated can be carried forwardly into the spinning rotor 4 by being entrained on such a flow of air stream.
In an attempt to permit the vacuum thus created in the spinning rotor 4 by air discharging out through said apertures 6 to act only on the space in said fibers delivery aperture 3, it has been so arranged that the opening 7 formed in the rotor 4 is constructed in a labyrinth configuration or is provided with a suitable sealing member. U.S. Pat. No. 3,874,751 is an example of prior art which teaches the use of such a labyrinth configuration of the rotor's opening 7. However, a sealing device using such a labyrinth structure is complicated in construction and satisfactory sealing performance cannot be expected therefrom. In particular, a spinning apparatus which uses resiliently-yieldable member to support the bearing for its spinning rotor does pose a serious problem because deflecting motion of the rotor due to the use of such resiliently-yieldable member may cause the rotating rotor to be brought into contact with any one of the adjacent component parts comprising the labyrinth structure, thus damaging the spinning apparatus. To avoid such a danger, various methods using a sealing member such as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 have been used extensively. These conventional sealing means merely comprise a sealing member 10, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, which is affixed on the body member 9 containing therein fibers delivery aperture 3, etc. and is set simply in contact with the front face 8' of another body member 8 surrounding and housing the rotor 4, furthermore said sealing member 10 usually being made of elastic form materials, thereby having various disadvantages, which are described below.
The front face 8' of body member 8 adjacent to the above-mentioned rotor opening 7 is so arranged as to press against the sealing member 10 which is attached to another face 9' of the body member 9, said face 9' being located in opposed relation to said front face 8' of the body member 8, whereby a space "a" (best shown in FIG. 2) is formed between the rotor opening 7 and the face 9' located opposite thereto. This space "a", providing a space large enough for accumulation of harmful amount of minute fibers, tends to trap into this space such fiber pieces which are difficult to be caught on the collecting surface 5 of rotor 4, because said space is hardly put under the direct influence of air being discharged through air discharge aperture 3 in body member 9 into the spinning rotor 4, and therefore, the result will be dwelling of such minute fiber pieces in said space "a". To make matters worse, because the sealing member 10 made of elastic form materials has rough outer surfaces, minute fiber pieces attached to such surfaces will be extremely difficult to be detached therefrom, which will result in further promotion of dwelling or accumulation of such pieces. In this way, the space "a" has a fear of becoming a dwelling section for minute fiber pieces, or so-called fly, and furthermore with an increase of fly trapped into this space "a" the deposit of fly will be then placed under the influence of vacuum effect, which will force such fly to be drawn out of the space and be deposited or collected on the collecting surface 5 of the rotor 4 for being formed into a yarn, thereby inducing yarn breakage trouble during spinning operation and inviting degraded yarn quality which are due to ingress of such fly into the yarn to be spinned.